This invention relates to a programmable billing system suitable for use in an automatic reproducing machine or any device for carrying out a series of re-occurring events.
More specifically, the present invention involves a billing system having a programmable break point decoder whereby a side variety of billing schemes can be rapidly and efficiently programmed into a copy machine. Conventionally, in most copier environments, the customer is billed at varying rates depending upon the number of copies produced during any particular copy run. For example, a higher billing rate may be applied for any number of copies made up to a first break point, a second lower rate for copies produced from the first break point to a second break point and a yet lower rate for all copies beyond the second break point.
Heretofore, in most copying machines, billing information was generally acquired by sensing some machine occurrence, such as support material feeding or the like, and sending this information directly to a billing meter system via a hard wired electrical network. As such, the billing system was only capable of identifying and recording one billing scheme. Furthermore, when a machine malfunction occurred and a copy run had to be temporarily interrupted, the original count was generally lost and, as a consequence, erroneous billing information was recorded upon the re-institution of the run. An example of such a hard wired prior art billing system can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,358,570.
It has been found in practice that the billing rates charged to customers by most machine suppliers will change from time to time during the lifetime of a single copying machine. These changes in billing rates, of course, necessitate a reorientation of the billing meters which, in the hard wired system, involves a relatively long machine down time or, in extreme cases, even recalling the machine from the field. This, of course, inconveniences the customer and results in considerable cost to the supplier.